The Florida Senate closed an investigation Friday into powerhouse gun lobbyist Marion Hammer, instructing her to amend improperly filed disclosure reports but not issuing any fines or sanctions.

Hammer made the requested changes and is now in compliance, Senate President Bill Galvano said in a statement.

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“I consider this matter closed,” he said.

Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, and Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, filed ethics complaints in May accusing Hammer of failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments she received from the National Rifle Association as required by the state’s lobbyist disclosure law.

Eskamani said she doesn’t think the investigation was complete, and she questioned whether Hammer received special treatment because of the influence the gun lobbyist wields in Tallahassee.

“A fine would have been a modest but positive decision," she said. “If it was any other lobbyist who faced the same kind of complaint, I think the results would have been different.”

Hammer could have faced a fine up to $5,000 per late report, which could have totaled more than $200,000 in fines.

Rather than conduct public hearings, the allegations were forwarded to the Office of Legislative Services, an administrative office that handles lobbyist registration.

Galvano said he was following precedent set by previous cases. Democrats blasted it as a move to make the complaints quietly go away.

Under Florida law, non-employee lobbyists are required to file quarterly compensation reports. Hammer is not an in-house lobbyist for the NRA.

Hammer received $979,000 in payments from the NRA from 2014-18, including a $270,000 payment last year for “consulting services and legislative lobbying” in Florida following the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 students and staff dead, according to tax records and annual NRA reports. The Florida Bulldog, an investigative news website, first reported the payments.

As the director of the pro-gun group Unified Sportsmen of Florida, Hammer earns an annual salary of $110,000, tax filings show. That organization, too, has been receiving $216,000 a year in funding from the NRA, according to the legislative investigation.

Audrey Moore, general counsel for the Office of Legislative Services, concluded that Unified Sportsmen’s lobbying reports should be amended to reflect its relationship with the NRA and the funding it has received.

Moore wrote that Hammer is not an NRA contract lobbyist because “Hammer and the NRA have provided sworn statements that the contract does not describe lobbying services on its face.” Citing a confidentiality clause, Hammer would not release a copy of her contract, but she did allow for it to be inspected, Moore wrote in the report.

In a letter to the general counsel, Hammer wrote that the contracts are for “general consulting services," and the disclosure statement was erroneously changed by a subordinate employee without her knowledge to say “legislative lobbying in Florida.” Hammer wrote that her lobbyist activities are through Unified Sportsmen of Florida.

Hammer issued a statement after the report’s findings were released Friday afternoon.

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“I, of course, am pleased that this matter has been concluded,” she said. “I have been a registered lobbyist since 1974. That is not and never has been a secret. I have never told anyone that I was not a lobbyist. When lobbyist firm filings first became required in Florida, I diligently sought out advice from the General Counsel of the Florida Senate to ask whether I needed to file anything differently than I had been doing for 30 plus years. I was told that I did not have any additional filing requirements as a lobbyist. Thus, in good faith I relied upon that advice. As the filings are a non-issue to me, I would have done so all along had I been so informed. However, I am less than happy that the officials handling and commenting on these matters did not highlight the important point that I did not do anything wrong except rely on the advice of counsel.”

Thurston said the Senate’s Rules Committee could have conducted a more transparent investigation. The Office of Legislative Services lacked the authority to compel the production of documents and gather testimony under oath, Thurston said.